My Review of The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

 

Written by Pete Young And Vance Gerry And Steve Hulett And Ron Clements And John Musker And Bruce M. Morris And Matthew O'Callaghan And Burny Mattinson And Dave Michener And Melvin Shaw

Directed by John Musker And Ron Clements And Dave Michener And Burny Mattinson

Dr. Dawson: "From that time on, Basil and I were a close team. We had many cases together, but I'll always look back on that first with the most fondness; my introduction to Basil of Baker Street, the great mouse detective."

Last year marked the fortieth anniversary of The Black Cauldron but I had not seen the Disney animated movie that followed it. Anyone care for a mouse version of Sherlock Holmes? That's exactly what this offered.

Now this isn't a new thing for Disney as well had gotten the animal version of Robin Hood and I will get to that at a later point, review wise. Anyways, on to this movie itself.

Our detective duo are mice named Basil (Barrie Ingham) of Baker Street and his sidekick David Q. Dawson (Val Bettin). Their case for this movie came at the behest of a young mouse named Olivia Flaversham (Susanne Pollatschek). She needed their help in rescuing her father, a toymaker named Mr Flaversham (Alan Young).

The latter had been kidnapped by Professor Ratigan (Vincent Price). He's a rat but don't remind him of that or he'll feed you to the cat. Ratigan also had a bat named Fidget (Candy Candido), who almost got eaten by the cat itself when he wasn't doing Ratigan's dirty work.

Mr Flaversham was needed to aid with a robot clone of the Mouse Queen (Eve Brenner). Ratigan planned to get rid of the real queen while using the robot to take over the country. He almost succeeded and even almost succeeded with getting rid of Basil, Dawson and Olivia but had gravely underestimated the trio.

As a team, they're a lot of fun and the supporting characters are great too. There's Basil's exasperated housekeeper, Mrs. Judson (Diana Chesney) and an entertaining dog character that also helped with the cases. As for the real Holmes and Watson, of course they appeared in their own way.

- Archive recording of Basil Rathbone was used for Sherlock's voice while Watson was voiced by Laurie Main.

- The movie also went by the title of The Adventures Of The Great Mouse Detective.

- Standout music: Miss Mouse's Let Me Be Good To You and Ratigan's The World's Great Criminal Mind and Goodbye So Soon.

- Chronology: It's 1897, London.

The Great Mouse Detective (based on a children's book series) was a lot of fun. Great choice of voice actors, nice nods to the world of Sherlock Holmes and decent songs, though not many. I enjoyed this.

Rating: 7 out of 10